How a program works
Six steps, in the open.
Every program we design runs the same six steps. The order matters: nothing is funded before residents have set the priorities, and nothing is spent without being reported.
A needs assessment run with residents, local officials, and the water and power authorities.
Not a survey; a process. We spend the first two to three months in the region, in living rooms, at the water authority, and at the county building. The output is a written account of what the community says it needs, in its own words, with the infrastructure gaps the authorities confirm. It is published before anything else happens. It also answers, in writing and in public, the questions residents are entitled to ask: power and water demand at full build-out, who pays for the substation and the water main, how many permanent jobs at what wages, what the contribution schedule is in dollars and dates, and who is responsible in year twenty.
A standing advisory council with a resident majority and an independent facilitator.
The council is the decision-making body for the fund. Residents hold the majority of seats. Local officials, the operator, and the fund sponsor may sit on it but cannot outvote residents. The facilitator is independent of us and of the operator. For programs headed toward Compute Stewardship Council certification, the facilitator is contracted by the Council, and we hand the council over once it is seated.
A restricted fund at a community foundation in the region, with published rules.
We do not hold money. The fund sits at a community foundation the region already knows, under a fund agreement that names what it can and cannot pay for, who recommends distributions, and how they are reported. The rules are public from the day the fund opens.
Contributions arrive on a schedule tied to the facility's activity, not to a press cycle.
The contribution schedule is written into the program. It may be tied to megawatts energized, to compute revenue, or to a fixed annual amount, but it is a schedule, not a gift. The community knows what is coming and when.
The council sets priorities: water infrastructure, broadband, workforce training, schools, whatever the town names.
The needs assessment sets the priorities. The council turns them into grants. In a rural county that can mean broadband: the fiber a data center pulls along its route can become public middle-mile service for the towns it passes. The community foundation confirms each grant is within the fund rules and disburses it. Neither the operator nor we vote on where the money goes.
Quarterly, publicly, in plain language, with every dollar accounted for.
Each quarter we publish what came in, what went out, and what it built, written for residents first. The fund statement from the community foundation is attached. The report is the evidence the operator's board, the fund sponsor's sustainability team, and the county commission all read, and it is the same document for all three.
The line runs under all six steps. That is the point.